When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKAWhatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.
More Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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It’s a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor’s orders, you have to be healthy as a horse.
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Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.
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You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
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Memory at last has what I sought.
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After every war someone has to tidy up.
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There is so much Everything that Nothing is hidden quite nicely.
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All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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Nothing’s a gift, it’s all on loan.
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I’m drowning in papers.
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God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.
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Something doesn’t start at its usual time. Something doesn’t happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.
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Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.
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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
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There’s simply too much fuss about myself.
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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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I’m fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
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And whatever I do will become forever what I’ve done.
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I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.
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I’m working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.
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Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
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Dying – you can’t do that to a cat.
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No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
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I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
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I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
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Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA